They followed the muddy footprints out of the cemetery, but lost his trail on the way to the Quarter. So they hired me to find him. Standard detective work. I remember the blond-haired niece in particular, her lower lip trembling, tears filling her eyes . . . so sad, so sincere, not even twenty years old. “Uncle Mel is lost—I just know he’s homeless somewhere! We’ve got to find him.”
And that’s what I did. I knocked on doors, I asked around the Quarter, I showed Mel’s funeral-notice photo to anyone I met (though the photo wasn’t going to be a very good likeness, since he’d been ripening in the grave for half a year). I finally found the unkempt-looking zombie sleeping in an alley, covered with flattened cardboard boxes and newspapers, little more than a pile of ambulatory detritus getting snuggly with rodents and beetles.
Success. I had done my job.
Mel was perfectly alert, and he must have been a charming guy in life. When I told him that his family had engaged my services to find him, at first he brightened, then became dejected as reality sank in. “They don’t want to see me like this.”
“Oh, yes, they do. Trust me, it’ll be all right.”
I arranged the meeting, and I was as excited as any of them. Since he’d been in the ground for so long, Mel was too putrid for embraces, however, which made for an awkward reunion. With one glance at his rotting form, the young blond niece and her aunts and uncles immediately reconsidered their wishes. Within minutes, they glanced at watches, consulted day planners, pretended they had other things to do.
The niece put her thumb to her ear and pinky to her mouth to mime a telephone and quipped, “We’ll call you, Uncle Mel.”
The others gave him their best wishes. “Take care of yourself, Mel.”
“So glad you’re okay.”
“If there’s anything we can do . . . Well, you’d better call first.”
The family had never made contact with Mel again, and he was left alone, heartbroken. A painfully typical case: Family loses loved one, loved one rises from the grave, loving family wants risen loved one back in their lives, family gets a whiff and changes their mind.
I had taken the forlorn zombie to the Hope & Salvation Mission and asked Mrs. Saldana to give him a helping hand. She gave Mel some self-help books and arranged for him to get a job. He’s actually quite happy now....
With a sigh, I realized I wasn’t getting any more benefit from the autopsy report, no matter how long I stared at it. Dead end. For now.
I delivered a couple of case folders back to Sheyenne. She opened the metal file drawer, sorted through dividers, and slid the folders back in place. “When I was in medical school, I was planning to be a surgeon,” she said. “Now I’m reorganizing office files.”
“I know, Spooky. Life didn’t turn out the way we wanted it to. Come to think of it, death didn’t turn out like we expected either. But at least you get to see me every day now.” As if that would cheer her up.
She made the pfft sound and ruffled some papers, then flashed me a flirtatious smile. “Small consolation, but it’ll do. Anyway, death is what you make of it.”
She retrieved several unsolved case folders from my office and set them on her desk so she could comb through the documents herself. “Meanwhile, I’ll keep doing the real work here—though it goes above and beyond the job description of an executive administrator.”
“You’re a lot more than an administrator. Paralegal too. Sounding board. Customer service rep.”
“Business manager,” she added. “If I didn’t help Robin and you go over the books, you’d never balance the accounts.”
“That’s beyond my detective abilities,” I said.
A week after she died, Sheyenne’s ghost had appeared in our offices and boldly announced that she was my new office manager, Robin’s new paralegal, and yes, thank you, she was going to accept the job, even though we hadn’t offered it. I didn’t have the heart to turn her down, especially after what Sheyenne had been through—after what we’d all been through. And after the promises I’d made to her on her hospital deathbed.
Now she looked up from the files. “Don’t forget, Beaux, you promised to find my murderer in your spare time.”
She’d been killed four full weeks before me, and I’d been diligently trying to solve her murder when I got shot myself. Coincidence? Whoever had given her the toadstool poison could be connected to the bastard who shot me. Or maybe not.
“I won’t forget about it, honest. I just hope you don’t quit your job after the case is solved.”
“You can’t get rid of me that easily—I thought you’d figured that out by now.” She gave me a wink. “Still, could be hazardous.”
“It’s already been hazardous.”
When she gave me that heartwarming-to-the-point-of-incandescence look with those blue eyes, I doubted I could ever forget her if I walked the earth for another two centuries. Nothing would make me happier than to put her killer, and mine, in the electric chair (or whatever form of execution was appropriate for their particular type). I just had to narrow down the suspects until I got the right one.
Alas, there was no shortage of people who wanted me out of the picture.
CHAPTER 9
Sheyenne checked the schedule and let me know about the last client of the day. “An emancipation case.”
“One of Robin’s, then? Am I supposed to be here for it?”
Sheyenne gave me that “Do you even have to ask?” raised eyebrow. “You know she likes to have you there for moral support.”
“I thought she wanted me there for the muscle.”
“Ha!” With a psychokinetic pfft!, Sheyenne fluttered a bunch of the papers on her desk. “That’s what I get for telling you how cute you are. Now you think you’re Adonis.”
Robin poked her head out of her office. “Is our five o’clock here yet?”
As if she had summoned the client, I heard painstaking, shuffling footsteps out in the hall: a long drag, then a footfall, a long drag, then a footfall, followed by slow, ominous rapping at the door.
“I wasn’t expecting so much suspense,” Sheyenne whispered to me. She opened the door.
Standing in front of us was a decrepit, half-unraveled bundle of bandages and rags that swaddled a short brown man. He was so desiccated that he looked like a child’s doll made of beef jerky. As he lurched forward, three moths flew up from among the bandages. I could hear his bones creaking.
The mummy spoke in a crisp businesslike British accent. “So sorry I’m late. My sundial is notoriously unreliable on cloudy days.” With several ancient scrolls tucked under his elbow, he shuffled into our offices, dragging his left foot. He extended a skeletal hand to me. “Ramen Ho-Tep, at your service.”
I took the grip, but didn’t shake too vigorously, afraid I might break something off (which could lead to a lawsuit of our own). “Pleased to meet you, sir.”
Robin greeted him with her dazzling smile. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Ho-Tep. Your case sounds very interesting. Would you mind if my partner sits in?”
The mummy regarded me. “Is he your slave?”
“No, and he’s not an attorney either, but I value his insights.”
“Brilliant,” the mummy said. “By all means. I want many ears to hear the persecution I’ve suffered.”
In the conference room, Ramen Ho-Tep thumped the ancient scrolls down on the table, and dust wafted up, along with tiny flakes of dried papyrus. Robin had already set out six enormous volumes of legal cases and precedents.
She wrapped up a half-eaten tuna sandwich from her late lunch and set it on a credenza next to a can of diet cola. “Sorry for the mess. I was just catching up.”
“No worries,” said the mummy. “You should have seen the state of my tomb when the archaeologists broke in.”
“You speak English extremely well, Mr. Ho-Tep.” I’m accustomed to unnaturals having slurred diction, and the ones with Southern accents are almost impossible to understand.
“I spent nearly a
century lying in the British Museum,” the mummy said. “One’s bound to pick up something of the language, even though I wasn’t actually aware. My body was loaned to the Metropolitan Natural History Museum shortly before the event you call the Big Uneasy . . . and then I woke up. That was a most distressing day, let me tell you! For scientific purposes, the archaeologists had unwrapped half of my bandages, and there I was, naked under the bright lights. If I’d still had any blood flow, I would have blushed quite furiously.”
Robin started jotting notes on her legal pad. “So, how can we help you, sir? I have the basics of your story, but I’d like my partner to be completely filled in.”
The mummy rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward. The sinews in his jaw snapped and clacked as he talked. “Due to the woeful state of your public education system, your citizens have little accurate knowledge of ancient Egypt. Most of what they think they know comes from those silly mummy movies, although I must admit that Arnold Vosloo did a creditable job of it. Good special effects.”
I didn’t tell him I was a Karloff man myself. Old school.
His head twitched, as if he were trying to focus on his thoughts again. “I was the pharaoh of all Egypt, but I do not have an inflated sense of my own importance. You’ve probably never heard of Ramen Ho-Tep. I’ve nothing to do with the dried noodles, I assure you—in fact, I’m thousands of years older than prepackaged food.” A sigh rattled out of his dry throat. “And now I’m merely . . .”
He seemed dejected. “I ruled for twenty floodings of the Nile before I succumbed to a fever caused by the bite of a tsetse fly. I was entombed in a lovely pyramid in the desert suburbs. The workers were killed, of course, the records struck, curses laid down—the usual privacy and security measures, but insufficient. Robbers ransacked the tomb within a century or two, and much later a team of British archaeologists removed my body.” Ho-Tep let out an indignant snort. “Apparently, if one calls oneself an ‘archaeologist’ rather than a ‘tomb raider,’ one receives far more respect. But the end result is the same.
“Now, being on display may sound glamorous, but it’s quite dull, I assure you. Once I awakened, it became clear that I needed to explain the true ways of life in ancient Egypt. I am uniquely qualified for the job, but those”—he inserted a guttural string of Egyptian words—“from the museum wouldn’t release me!”
Ramen Ho-Tep became more animated. His shoulders stiffened, his bones squeaked and bandages rustled, and he did look terrible to behold. Previously, I was skeptical about animated mummies who are supposed to be fearsome. I mean, how can anybody be afraid of something that couldn’t outrun a banana slug? But now, as the mummy unleashed his true anger, Robin and I both flinched.
“I wish to be emancipated! I must be freed. I was Pharaoh of all Egypt! I was a god. I am not a slave—I am no one’s property! And I should know, because I had a great many slaves of my own. Nevertheless, the museum insists that they own me.”
Robin, as usual, grew incensed and indignant on behalf of her client. “We have laws against this sort of thing, Mr. Ho-Tep. Slavery has been outlawed for more than a century and a half.” She turned to the law books stacked on the table, opened one of the thickest tomes, and riffled through the pages to where she had used a sticky note to mark a passage. “A wealth of case law has withstood every legal challenge.”
The mummy unrolled his own ancient scrolls to reveal faded hieroglyphics. “I brought my own case law—Egyptian case law. Look at this clause here, under paragraph six, subclause B.” He pointed to drawings that showed a sphinx, a bird, and squiggly lines that might have been water. “Right there, as plain as day: Shall I read it aloud? Bird, foot, round thing, another bird. How can opposing counsel argue? You need only show this to a qualified judge, and I shall be freed from captivity within the week.”
“That might be a tad optimistic, Mr. Ho-Tep,” Robin said. “The Metropolitan Museum will oppose the emancipation petition. They’ll question your status as a human being, or they might claim that you’re not capable of taking care of yourself. Or they could bring in an expert from the Health Department to testify that your moldy old bandages are a public health hazard, and therefore you can’t be allowed to roam free.” She gave him a look of great concern. “They’ll try to humiliate you in front of a jury.”
The mummy was furious. “This is not possible! I was Pharaoh of all Egypt!”
“Yes, you mentioned that,” I interrupted, “but it won’t necessarily impress a judge.” In general, I prefer to give my clients a realistic view of their cases.
Robin chimed in, still optimistic. “Don’t worry, we’ll do everything legally possible to ensure your emancipation.”
“Please hurry,” the mummy said. “I’ve waited thousands of years. I simply can’t bear it anymore.”
After Ramen Ho-Tep shuffled back to the museum, Robin used a small hand vacuum to clean up the dust and debris he had left behind on the conference table, while I pitched in with a carpet sweeper to get rid of the larger pieces on the floor.
“I think I’ll call it a day,” I said. “I’m going to stop by the Goblin Tavern.”
“I’ll put in a few more hours here before I go upstairs,” Robin said. No surprise. We both spent more time working than in our individual apartments above the office.
Sometimes I worried about her. She worked herself to the bone, gave 110 percent to her clients, felt every ounce of their pain, reflected their righteous indignation. She was always optimistic, utterly convinced that Justice would prevail and Truth would win in the end. How could I not love her for it? But I worried about her.
Robin and I—and Sheyenne—were a good team. Most of the cases were satisfying . . . except for the one that had killed me.
CHAPTER 10
Half of a private detective’s job is simply keeping your eyes and ears open and going to places where people are willing to let their guard down and talk. That’s why you see so many PIs frequenting bars and nightclubs. It’s work-related. Really.
The Goblin Tavern is the sort of hangout you’d expect, a homey and dingy place where everybody knows your name, but they don’t hold it against you. A long wooden bar lined with stools, some of them wide and reinforced for the larger customers; a handful of dark tables with splintered wooden chairs; an array of liquor bottles on the top and bottom shelves; three taps for beer; a medical-grade refrigerator for donated blood packs, soy blood, and a special stainless-steel locker for the good stuff.
Cobwebs were carefully cultivated along the rafters and in the corners; one big glass jar held pickled eggs in a murky fluid, right next to a nearly identical jar filled with preserved eyeballs; the two jars had different-colored screw lids, so customers wouldn’t get confused. Shrink-wrapped packets of jerky, made from a wide variety of flesh, filled a cardboard box next to the cash register.
Ilgar, the goblin owner, hated the place and hated the customers. In his lair in the back room, you might catch a glimpse of him, hear the clack and chatter of his adding machine, maybe a muttered curse when the ledgers didn’t add up to his satisfaction. He was rarely seen working the bar.
Because it’s my business to collect information, I knew a secret about Ilgar and his tavern, but I kept it to myself. He was in very serious negotiations with an outside food-and-drink conglomerate, the Smile Syndicate, that wanted to franchise the Goblin Tavern—a great relief for Ilgar, no doubt. The guys-in-ties were exploring the possibility of opening a chain of duplicate Goblin Taverns across the country, catering to curious humans who wanted a safe taste of the Unnatural Quarter, something like the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland, except with plenty of alcohol available.
Many humans are morbidly fascinated by the dark side of the city. Large, secure tour buses drive around the Quarter so that curiosity seekers can watch the monsters in their unnatural habitat. As part of the route, and the experience, the buses drop off the passengers for a drink at the Goblin Tavern, one of the highlights of the tour. Next year, the pl
ace was going to be a zoo, when the Worldwide Horror Convention was due to come to town.
Ilgar had a terrible time keeping bartenders and cocktail waitresses; he’d gone through three in one particularly bad week (two had quit, one hadn’t survived). That changed when he found Francine, a fiftyish human woman who’d seen it all, had dealt with tough customers throughout her life, and didn’t put up with any guff from rowdy unnaturals.
“I’ve waited on slobs, pigs, and jerks in human bars too,” she once told me. “Certain people turn into assholes when they’re drunk. Doesn’t matter whether they’re truck drivers or necromancers. I know how to spot ’em, and I know how to deal with ’em.”
And she did. Francine settled right in at the Tavern, got to know the regulars. You might not think a human bartender could relate to the problems of unnaturals, but Francine had been through three marriages, a bankruptcy, a house fire, a drug-addict kid, and persistent plantar warts that made her feet so sore that she hated to stand all day (although she had no choice). As a career bartender, she was well practiced in listening to the customers’ woes. She didn’t try to offer solutions, just poured another drink and knew when to pick up a round.
I entered the tavern as night fell and took my usual seat at the bar. Even before she came over, Francine grabbed a pint glass.
There are stages of being a regular customer at any establishment. First, as the bartender gets to know you, she’ll try to earn points by remembering you and your order. “Tap beer? Large?” Second, she goes to the next stage, asking the coy question, “You want the usual, Dan?” even though she knows what the answer will be. But we were past all that. As soon as Francine saw me, she pulled the beer without asking anything at all.
Yes, I come here that often.
My taste buds aren’t as sharp as before, and I always have a funny aftertaste in my mouth, so the brand of beer no longer matters to me. And liquor doesn’t affect me the same as it used to (Sheyenne might say that my thoughts are often fuzzy anyway). Even back in the old days, I never hung out at bars to get drunk, but for the social benefits. It’s part of my job, although I haven’t yet figured out a way to submit my tab as an expense that the IRS would allow. While death isn’t a sure thing anymore, taxes still are.
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